


Ill-Met By Moonlight

by Shadaras



Category: The Wind City
Genre: Dominance, M/M, Oral Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-22
Updated: 2013-11-22
Packaged: 2018-01-02 07:37:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1054186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shadaras/pseuds/Shadaras
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Whai and Ariki have an /agreement/ about each other. They'd never admit it to anyone else -- hell, they barely admit it to themselves -- but they have an agreement to meet every month anyway.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ill-Met By Moonlight

**Author's Note:**

> guys you do not understand my joy at being able to post this here.
> 
> link to the book's webpage, since it's just been published: http://www.steampress.co.nz/wind.html

The full moon rose overhead. Whai fidgeted, weaving thin strips of seaweed into almost-patterns and tearing them apart again. They had an _agreement_. Where _was_ he? They’d kept the agreement for years and years, endless cycles of the moon waxing and waning, birthing the world in light and silver that suited neither and both of them, but which certainly made the world more beautiful; they could agree on that much, at least.

If he had ever paused long enough to think about the origins of their agreement, Whai might have admitted that it was as much to keep the other patrons of the Hikurangi from tossing them out of the city until they stopped fighting as it was for their own gain. The too-tall, smirking, patupaiarehe _insulted_ him constantly, making accusations with no ground to stand on! Not even water to _swim_ in. Though, really, that’d be worse; water _meant_ something.

Whai glared at the shadows leading to the city streets. He should have been here... maybe half an hour ago. Whai swore under his breath. Couldn’t tell Ariki about that. He’d frown and act concerned and all those things he wasn’t _supposed_ to do. They weren’t friends. Even though they had this agreement. The agreement was just to satisfy everyone else that they wouldn’t _actually_ kill each other or destroy anything else in their fights. It had nothing to do with any amount of personal affection.

He was still convincing himself of that yet again when Ariki walked out of the shadows, paler than usual in the moonlight, hair somehow managing to look like fire despite the silvering moon, impeccably dressed with cloth that seemed like a second skin and lent an even uncannier air to his fluid motions. And, of course, he carried his taiaha, braced over his shoulder, fingers pale on its dark wood, its head darkly shining.

Whai refused to give Ariki the satisfaction of seeing a reaction beyond baring his teeth in what could conceivably be called a smile. Everything about his own form was sharp and jagged, not-quite-scaled and scarred and covered with clothing as ripped and battered as his own body. He didn’t need to carry a weapon around. Whai tapped claw-sharp fingernails against the dock, and called out to the patupaiarehe. “Come to enjoy the moonlight on the water?”

Ariki stopped before he set foot on the wooden docks, didn’t respond.

Whai hissed. That wouldn’t do at _all_. “You’re _late_. You deserve this.” He couldn’t quite keep petulance from his tone, much as he tried. He tried to make up for it with a glare and an ever-sharper smile.

“Something came up.” Ariki let the taiaha slide through his fingers until the butt of the weapon touched the first plank of the dock. “I was unavoidably detained.” He smiled, lazily, teeth shining bright. “Did I upset you? I wasn’t sure if you’d even be here; you’ve said often enough that I bored you, that I ‘can’t understan’ th’ true meanin’ of th’ moonlit waves’.”

The imitation was perfect. Whai shoved down the pleasure it gave him, hearing his hissing speech in Ariki’s ever-formal voice, listening to Mister High-and-Mighty come down to _his_ level for once. “True ‘nuff,” he said, agreeably. “But if I defaulted on our _agreement_ —” and he let the word have the edge that it should have, fierce and pointed and poignant “—you wouldn’t be the only one to come after my blood, and I can’t have _that_.”

“No,” the patupaiarehe said, voice cold as the mountain wind, beautiful as the first bird’s song. “I don’t think we can.”

And he came, then, came as Whai’d known he would, came fierce and fire underneath that façade of wind and mountains too cold and distant for the emotions that he’d always been able to see in Ariki. Whai laughed and stood, balancing on his toes on the not-yet-rotten edge of the dock, arms spread in not-quite-offering and not-quite-embrace.

Ariki’s laugh was deeper, darker – his laugh reminded Whai of the deepest parts of the ocean, where you’d gone through the cold and it was warm again, warm from the earth’s heart and memory, and there wasn’t any light but from those creatures that created their own, and Ariki was one of those, born of a place that didn’t make sense and come to another, and he _burned_ and Whai shouldn’t revel in that, shouldn’t revel in the warmth of an element that was so incredibly painful to bear, but the patupaiarehe’s fire wasn’t _true_ fire – it was the fire of heart and power and blood boiling over with need.

Whai ducked under Ariki’s taiaha easily; he’d been left that opening, and he knew that, even as he danced backwards, bare feet sure on the slippery wood, watching the way Ariki’s stylish shoes left him sliding slightly, and he flicked out a strand of seaweed, wrapping it around the taiaha, and _pulled_. Ariki wouldn’t let go of his weapon; it meant too much to him. Whai was counting on that, counting on that to let him draw the patupaiarehe in closer, close enough to grab hold of smooth wood and yank Ariki down for a kiss that drew blood, sharp teeth cutting into soft lips that tasted like snowmelt and the first rains of spring.

Ariki returned the kiss in kind, teeth not quite as sharp but no kinder, bursts of pain and bruising lips, a tongue forced inside his mouth like it belonged there and _oh_ it did, though he’d never say that, never show it, because that would be too much, and Whai pressed back, fighting for control of his mouth, clinging, barely noticing as his fingernails caught and tore cloth instead of wood or flesh. When Ariki at last withdrew – just the barest amount, just enough to perhaps be able to think, though that was hard with the patupaiarehe’s breath warm and just a little ragged, when he could see barest hints of a flush on those pale cheekbones – Whai found himself caught inside arms slender and strong and he couldn’t get out.

He grinned up at Ariki then, licking his lips theatrically, tasting his own blood mingled with Ariki’s, salt and lightning tinting them distinctively. “That all, then?” he drawled, leaning back, letting the patupaiarehe take his entire weight. He wouldn’t fall. Even if he hadn’t the strength, Ariki would never give him _that_ satisfaction without a fight. “Caught me and kissed me and goin’ no further?” He stretched, watching as Ariki’s moon-coloured eyes traced the bony lines of his body. “That’s a right _shame_ , that is.”

“You don’t know the meaning of that word.”

But Ariki’s fingers were splayed against his back, both hands and the taiaha nowhere Whai could see or feel, and that in itself was a victory. Whai laughed. “Shame’s a hard word to define, darlin’, but I think you got t’ have _pride_ to do shame rightly, don’t you?”

The sharp lines of the patupaiarehe’s face turned harsh in that moment, and Whai spent a heartbeat admiring the way Ariki looked before he was thrown to the docks, and yeah, _there_ was the taiaha, he was lying right across it, the solid wood pressing across his back in a most uncomfortable way. He couldn’t do anything about it, of course; Ariki pressed him down, and Whai realized that he was _very grateful_ that he hadn’t landed on the pointy part of the weapon. Instead, he did his best to breathe, staring with as little fear as he could muster at the cold mountain princeling pinning him to the dock.

“You,” Ariki said, voice hissing, almost as harsh as a ponaturi’s now, and Whai couldn’t quite hold back the way that note made him press closer, though Ariki had carefully arranged himself so that he held Whai’s shoulders with his hands and his legs caught Whai’s own. “You are a terrible excuse for a ponaturi, a mockery of what your kind should be.” His head dipped closer, and strands of hair brushed against Whai’s face. “You long for what is not and can never be yours and break yourself to pieces trying to reconcile yourself to that fact.”

The patupaiarehe’s lips brushed against his ear, and Whai whined, straining for more contact, more pretense of warmth. “No,” Ariki whispered, his breath the closest thing to a caress he ever gave. “You don’t _deserve_ this.”

Whai opened eyes he hadn’t realized he’d closed, reaching towards Ariki even though he knew his hands would be warded off by elbows before they could even get close. “Please,” he said, trying to sound self-assured instead of desperate. “I deserve so much more than _you_.”

Ariki just laughed.

The bite, hard as it was, wasn’t unexpected. That Ariki continued to laugh as he pressed bruises into Whai’s neck, as Whai’s whines became audible and he felt his blood heat and heart pound – that was. And the more he heard that laugh, heard the sound of streams and waterfalls, cold and chilling and so very _present_ even as heat surrounded him (but not enough, never enough, not when the only true contact on his skin was Ariki’s mouth, and even that kept itself above his waist, not even reaching hipbones).

“Please,” Whai said again, but this time he said it ragged, said it between whimpers and whines, between caught breaths and futile attempts to have any sense of control. “ _Please_.”

“All you had to do was ask.” Ariki sounded amused. Of course he was. Whai groaned as those hands, those hands with fingers cold and delicate and deceptively careless, those hands that looked so soft but _weren’t_ , never had been and never would be, traced down his chest, brushing aside the rags of his shirt, tracing patterns between the bruises he knew were forming from the patupaiarehe’s mouth, teasing skin still sensitive from teeth and tongue, and finally coming to a rest, one on his left nipple and the other gently hovering over his crotch.

“Tell me what you want.”

Quiet, in control, no hint of the savagery his mouth had just performed in those words. Whai whined. He knew he did. He couldn’t help it, could barely control himself enough to open his eyes and _look_ at Ariki, look at the man who knelt above him, clothes barely showing any disarray, hair falling out of its tight ponytail and just making him want to grab and _pull_ and sea and sweet water, Whai _wanted him_.

Only when Ariki smiled, teeth sharp and shining, did the ponaturi realize he maybe might have spoken that aloud. He hadn’t meant to, and was about to deny his own words when those fingers, equally sure on taiaha and flute, closed around his nipple and twisted, pulled, and pain shot through him and he arched into it, pressing into the patupaiarehe’s other hand, grinding into pressure for the split second before that hand disappeared and Whai didn’t even _try_ to hide his moan at that lack, after the moment of touch he wanted, half- _needed_.

Then he felt the taiaha beneath him slide away, and his back touched wet planks instead, and Ariki’s weight wasn’t over him anymore, his touch nowhere to be found, and Whai whimpered from the sudden chill.

“Oh, hush.” Ariki. Annoyed as ever. “I don’t want to touch the scraps of cloth you call clothing anymore. Where did you get them from, a garbage dump?” Quick fingers, clever fingers, good idea. The feeling of the docks on his skin was as welcome as the patupaiarehe’s hands, as familiar as the kiss – almost gentle, not biting at all, just firm and assured – Ariki gave him.

Whai reached towards Ariki, hoping, as ever, that he’d be able to touch those clothes, strip them off the white angles that were his lover’s body, tease and play instead of being—

“Your touch would turn these into rags.” Not as cold as Whai’d been expecting; closer to laughter than rage, but those weren’t very far apart at all. Another kiss, this one closer to a bite. “Keep those to yourself.”

“If I don’t?”

“Your rags aren’t good for anything else, anyway.” A smile against his cheek, paired with the chill of the docks against his legs, and Whai gasped, rocking closer to Ariki’s body, pressing his hands against the dock and _pushing_ , foiled only by the patupaiarehe sitting up and sliding his pants all the way off. Whai followed partway, stopped by the _look_ Ariki gave him, pretending instead that he’d _meant_ to just sit up and lounge, weight on his elbows, watching as Ariki carefully began taking off his own clothing.

First, the jacket, dark gray turned silver in the moonlight, revealing what Whai thought was a pale blue pinstriped shirt. He ached to unbutton that, press kisses to near-white skin that seemed to glow, darken that skin with bites and bruises that nobody else would ever see, but that he’d be able to find days later and smirk at and see that glower that Ariki so loved to give him, that he so loved to give Ariki _reason_ to give him. And now that shirt was off, carefully folded, and the patupaiarehe began unbuttoning his trousers, and Whai realized that the background noise he was hearing was him whining and digging his fingernails into the wood to keep him from reaching out and _helping._  

Ariki was _beautiful_. Whai’d never met anyone who could deny that. He was patupaiarehe, silver and shining and beautiful as the mountains that were their home. He was angles and smooth skin, scars a shade darker and slender, flush against his skin and unnoticeable unless you were looking. He was covered with muscle, lean and strong and he gave himself to Whai and, not for the first time, the ponaturi wondered _why_ , because it made no sense that someone so gorgeous would ever lower himself to _his_ level, but Ariki did. Ariki did, and Ariki had _agreed_ to this, though they never talked about it, never talked about why, and _oh_ he was naked now, bare to the wind and the water and the ocean spray, and Whai just _looked_ at him, looked at pale, slender, _beautiful_ Ariki, unmarred and hair unbound now, strong and erect and standing there, face turned up to the moonlight, a statue who knew he was being admired and _loved_ it and Whai couldn’t bring himself to care.

Slowly, carefully, he sat up, knelt on the wooden planks, not caring about how they bit into his knees. “Please,” he whispered, reaching for Ariki, resisting the desire to throw himself at Ariki and toss him into the water, tie him to the dock’s pilings and fuck him until they hung there, exhausted and covered with salt as the moon set over the city. He’d managed that once, and the memory stayed with him, something to be savored in late and lonely nights, but it had come at a price, and he’d promised Ariki that he would never do that again, not without permission, and he’d yet to get it, and he’d stopped expecting it.

Ariki grabbed his hair, pulled his head up, looked him in the eye with a smile that was all teeth. “Worship me,” he said, cold as snow, warm as summer, voice liquid as the river and no less powerful than the tides. Whai whimpered from that voice, not the pull on his hair that just made him ache more, and he nodded, catching his breath at the added pressure, and moved closer, reaching for the patupaiarehe’s hips, barely holding himself from nuzzling Ariki, filling himself with the scent of rain and dry leaves and the taste of clean sweat and snowmelt with just a hint of dry salt and sweetness that he had never been able to name.

Whai still couldn’t reconcile the granite perfection of Ariki’s body with the amount of _warmth_ he produced. As he laid his hands on hipbones that looked sharp enough to cut but were built entirely out of muscle, the contrast with the temperature around them – cool, crisp, scented with salt and seaweed – was startling even when he knew it was coming, even when he’d been waiting for a chance to touch since moonrise. Carefully – trying not to tempt Ariki into yanking his head back up – he rested his forehead on the patupaiarehe’s thigh, letting his hands drift around to caress his spine, nails tracing lines that he felt in Ariki’s pulse and breath.

Before he got his hair yanked as a reminder, he began kissing that pale skin; gentle, for now, gentle to start with, because going quickly meant this would be over all too quickly, because this way he could lick at skin, taste the sweat beginning to build up, mixed with the hints of sea-spray that occasionally flickered over them, causing Ariki to shift his weight as Whai held in his laughter.

Only once he’d kissed his way up one thigh and down the other, crossing hipbones (not sucking on them, not yet, but _oh_ it was hard to resist) and carefully avoiding Ariki’s crotch, did Whai begin to bite. His teeth were sharp, of course; he was a hunter, a predator, and his teeth reflected that, and as he skimmed them, threat and promise bound together, over Ariki’s skin, feeling quick pulses of blood against his lips, the sped-up beating of a heart so casual and reserved, beating for him now, beating for the bites that don’t quite draw blood but instead – if he listened closely enough, pulled himself out of desire long enough to hear – drew breath, caused a spasm of fingers against his hair, and Whai smiled as he bit higher, no plan or pattern but a _need_ to suckle on those damnable hipbones.

They swept out of sleek legs coated in muscle, carved a beautiful _V_ into a torso built like a sculptor’s dream, pointed his gaze straight and shamelessly to a cock raised out of wiry hair the colour of flame, a pale shadow on silver skin, and Whai pulled Ariki’s hips closer as he bit into the curve of the patupaiarehe’s hip, just close enough that if Ariki tried he could brush the head of his cock against his cheek, and as the ponaturi pressed his lips deeper, pulling out his teeth to taste the barest hint of blood, he gasped, head pulled abruptly to the side.

“Worship me, I said.” Ariki’s voice was a waterfall now, Whai thought. Rougher, no less powerful. And in it was the wind, the quick breaths of birds and laughing, falling water just before it took the plunge. “What do you call what you’ve been doing?”

“Worship.” Whai grinned, bobbing his head forward in what might be called a mockery of a bow, hair pulled taut and Ariki leaning into him without meaning to, closing the distance as Whai very carefully avoided touching him. “A quick prayer is nothin’, yeah?”

Ariki cursed, dragging him closer still, and Whai yelped, digging his fingers into buttocks soft despite being mostly muscle, and was rewarded with a pause, and a deepened voice as the litany of accusations continued. Whai ignored them. He’d heard them all before, and they washed over him, nothing more than a familiar voice, a rushing river emptying into the sea, power and comfort and he loved the feel of it, even if all he remembered was the cadence; rough and warm and carrying him onwards as he began to lick the lines of Ariki’s hips again.

“Stop playing _games_ , or I _will_ tie you up.”

Whai caught his breath. That tone. Promise and slow torture and he groaned against Ariki’s skin, fingers trailing down the curve of his arse and down his thighs, brushing inward and never quite close enough to be anything but a tease. If he could draw this out long enough, hold out long enough, not give in to his own desire, because the way Ariki tasted was finer than anything he’d ever known...

He let Ariki thrust uselessly against the side of his head as he bent to bite the inside of the patupaiarehe’s thigh, teeth brushing against an artery but not pressing down enough to even damage the skin. The threat was enough, the threat and the way he moved, curling in under Ariki’s body, grateful (as he rarely was) for how small he was and how tall Ariki stood; if he bent just so, he could fit almost entirely under his legs, and lick his way up, knowing that the way his hair brushed against Ariki’s crotch was doing _delightful_ things to the patupaiarehe.

When he was almost to Ariki’s balls, he turned his head abruptly and began going down the other side with nothing more than a puff of breath. At that, as he’d hoped, as he’d held himself back from asking for, Ariki wrenched himself away and said, very coldly, “Enough.”

Whai stilled, sitting on his knees, hands at his side, looking up at the patupaiarehe, looking at a warrior prince in his prime, anger and lust pooled equally under his skin so that he trembled with it, so that he shone under the moonlight with sweat, with desire, and it was all Whai could do to stay there, fingers biting into the dock’s planks, everything about wanting to leap forward and take what should rightfully be his.

Ariki began whistling, and the wind came at his call, and Whai let his head fall back as cold strings of air slithered across his body, ice against the warmth he hadn’t realized had gathered in his skin, and it did nothing to boil off his desire; it just make it stronger, made him press up even as the wind bound his thighs and calves, tied his ankles to his wrists, kept him in one place as the patupaiarehe advanced, letting his song die though the wind stayed, strong as well-woven rope. “And now,” Ariki said, gentle as snowfall, deadly as a snowstorm, “you are _mine_.”

And he thrust into Whai’s mouth, held him tight and didn’t let go, and Whai let out an agonized, muffled moan at the force, at the taste, at the effort of keeping his teeth away from sensitive skin, at the way his blood’s heat warred with the night-chill winds wrapped around him, and he couldn’t think anymore, couldn’t do anything but stay there, head kept still by strong fingers, fucked by a cock that tasted of the purest mountain springs and melted snow and was warmer than either taste had any right to be.

That he came first, just from being tied up, from being fucked, from being _used_ by a pretty mountain lordling who didn’t know what respect mean, who didn’t understand anything _important_ , who was _late_ and never let himself go and _why did he feel so good how the fuck did he manage that_.

By the time Whai could think clearly again, his mouth was full of the taste of salt and fresh water in a disconcertingly lovely way. He swallowed, hands coming up to catch at Ariki, pull him down. The bonds on him had dissolved at Ariki’s orgasm, Whai guessed, and as the patupaiarehe sat heavily next to him, face in the same state of not-really-here that Whai bet his had been just a minute earlier, he’d enjoyed himself greatly. Whai grinned and kissed him, full on the mouth, sweeter than he’d ever let himself be otherwise, sweet as the lord himself when he let himself be.

Ariki only responded when Whai stood, still not quite steady on his feet but okay with that, because once he was in the water he’d be free, be able to think and swim and glory in the sensation of satiation that would never last as long as he’d like. The patupaiarehe grabbed at him, said, “Wait,” as if they ever stayed in one place after fucking, after consummating their damned agreement.

Whai looked at him as he gathered up his scattered clothes, looked at him, the way his hair lay sweat-matted and tangled on carven chest, and smiled. “See you,” he said, and he dove into the water before he could be convinced to stay, and do something that might be _really_ stupid, like cuddle.


End file.
